


Not So Little Boys

by crowleyshouseplant (orphan_account)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Kid Fic, Thingstiel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-26
Updated: 2012-07-26
Packaged: 2017-11-10 18:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/469473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/crowleyshouseplant
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>anon prompted: i would be interested in a full (ish) interpretation of dean/thingstiel puff the magic dragon, because i, too, am egotistical? :')</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not So Little Boys

Dean Winchester never said another word after Mary died. Bobby believed that one day Dean would speak, told John not to worry, not to push the boy—if he didn’t want to speak then that was his business.

Dean figured that as long as he could still clean a gun—shoot straight—protect his baby brother Sammy—who cared if he said a word?

But sometimes when he was sleeping in bed—he thought he saw a shadow stretch across the walls—it had a long neck and a snout with something that looked like fangs jutting up above the lip—like a saber tooth Dean had seen in Sammy’s plastic book of monsters.

Then one day, the owner of the shadow (because of course all shadows had owners, though Dean knew that one couldn’t stick a shadow back on with soap or sew it on with needle and thread) climbed through the window.

It was a dragon—a dragon with a blue tie hanging from his scaled neck. What Dean first thought was a patch of mane or fur, was actually a writhing mess of snakes, each with their own fangs which Dean figured to be poisonous.

According to Dad, all the monsters were poisonous. Their bites festered and infested and changed people.

Their kisses were even worse.

According to Dad.

Dean swallowed hard—wondered if he should be afraid, but couldn’t summon the energy to do so. Still, his limbs pushed him back from the bed, up into the corner, and his hands pulled the covers up to his chest. He was glad that Sam was presumably watching television since he could hear a laugh track.

Smoke wafted from the dragon’s nostril, then disappeared as the dragon sniffed deep.  “I’m Castiel—an angel of the lord.”

Dean blinked at the dragon, who didn’t look like any other angel he’d seen in the books, in the bibles. Dean scuffled to the edge of the bed, ducked down and took from under its dusty, shadowy depths, a stuffed angel that Dad had said his mom had bought before—

It was squishy, out of shape, because sometimes Dean slept with it—but it had white wings, which Dean tugged. And the dragon stood a little taller, it’s curved talons breaking the mattress, stuffing spilling out, and spread leathery, black wings so far they crowded the ceiling.

Dean shook his head, leaned forward, and tugged at the dragon’s tie because why would a dragon need a tie.

The dragon looked down, as if surprised, cradling the tie in a huge clawed foot, accidentally grazing Dean’s skin, leaving a scraped up mark against his knuckles that began to well a little with red and a little pain.

“This?” Castiel said. “This is a vessel. He prayed for this.” Then Castiel leaned forward. “But perhaps--you see one of my true faces.” Closer now, until Dean felt the heat of the fire burning in Castiel the dragon’s belly, warming his entire body even though they weren’t touching.

“You don’t speak,” Castiel said.

Dean shook his head, hands in his lap, gaze skirting the area around Castiel’s clawed feet.

It looked like it’d hurt if Castiel decided to grip him tight, shed his skin with those fierce, jagged talons.

“Would you like to see her again?” Castiel said, words smelling like cinders.

Dean nodded then, but jerked back when Castiel reached for him with those talons, those clawed limbs.

“I’m not going to hurt you, Dean,” Castiel said. “I’m an angel of the lord. I’ve watched over since you were born.” The snakes writhing along Castiel’s head fell silent. “Do you trust me?”

And they waited. Dean swallowed hard, then reached for Castiel, who guided him towards the window. “Jump,” Castiel whispered in his ear, and Dean did—squeezing his eyes shut against the nipping cold of the night wind, until Castiel caught him well before he hit the ground and, with a beat of vast leathery wings, raised him through the air, through the clouds, against the stars.

When they touch down, it’s morning in 1960 and Dean thought it strange that nobody noticed a dragon and a boy walking along the sidewalk, gawking at the signs or drinking milk shakes through red striped straws, until Dean saw a mirror and there was him, but then there was another man, taller, in a trench coat and a blue tie.

And Dean wondered if that was the vessel Castiel had first referenced and was glad that he had seen the dragon’s face with the little snake eyes and their hungry, slithering little mouths because they didn’t say a word, just like him, and maybe the dragon didn’t really say a word either, and it was just the voice of that man filtering through and Dean smiled at Castiel then, who looked down their huge snout, their golden yellow eyes swallowed up with blue pupils that reminded Dean of space and time—which probably wasn’t so surprising, considering where they were.

They found Mom, back when she was Mary Campbell, back when she climbed great oak trees and hung from their limbs by her knees. Back when she practiced throwing knives and tried on Grandma’s pumps. Back when she smiled and she laughed and she jumped from the rooftops with a cape tied around her neck and Castiel caught her gently, and made sure she landed without breaking her bones, and they heard Grandpa scolding her for being so careless, that she might have gotten hurt, and, when she came out to sulk on the porch steps, Dean gave her a stick of a gum from his pocket, and they smacked at it noisily together, until Mom stuck out her hand and said her name was Mary, what’s yours, and Dean just shook his head and shrugged because he couldn’t bear to say his name to the person who’d named him.

And Mary suggested they play hunters and monsters and Dean nodded, and she volunteered to be the hunter, and that left Dean as the monster. And when she turned her back to count to one hundred (prime numbers only, okay kid?) Dean lifted his arms and prayed that Castiel would set him up there in the trees because he knew that if he climbed them himself Mom would hear and hunt him down and win the game. He watched her crawl under the house, getting her white blouse all dirty, and then she saw him, a flash of red from his t-shirt against the green foliage, and she lobbed fallen acorns at him until he’s forced to crawl down, scraping up his hands and his knees, and she chased him around the yard until the yellow pool of sunshine disappeared under the shadow of night, until Grandpa shouted at her to come in and eat her greens from the porch and no, your new friend can’t come, tell him to go back to his own mom and eat at his own house, and she crushed him a little in an impromptu hug and whispered, “Sorry,” before she disappeared into the house, and without even thinking, Dean said back, “It’s okay.”

Then there’s just Castiel, keeping the night chill from Dean by folding him up in their wings, a fire hot in their belly, and Dean finally fell asleep, waking up in his own bed, empty except for the desk and the clothes on the floor and the split open bean bag chair.

He called, “Cas?” but there was no answer. That’s alright—in lots of books, it happened that friends could only show up some of the time, and heck, it was like that in real life too.

But when Castiel didn’t show up that night, Dean wondered. And when he finally managed the courage to ask dad if angels and dragons were real, Dad laughed first then said, “No, Dean, no.”

Dean wondered what Dad really knew anyway, so he went to church because Castiel was an angel of god and churches were houses of god, but the preacher didn’t know anything—and it was only when Dean saw the expanse of a tan trench coat, blue eyes, and messy, wild hair that Dean pushed his way to that man, slipped his tiny hands in the man’s large one, and said, “Cas?”

The man looked down, confused, who the hell are you look in his face. “I’m not Cas, it’s me—Jimmy.” And he shuddered violently, before stepping away, teeth gnawing on his lips like he had more to say and Dean wondered if he only imagined hearing the echo of the man’s voice as he pedaled away on his bicycle, calling out over and over Castiel, Castiel, Castiel.

And when Sam’s old enough to talk and ask him questions Dad just shrugs at, questions like, “Are angels real?” --

Dean just bit deep into his hamburger, rubbed his wrist over his lip so as to stop juice from trickling down his chin. “Nope. I don’t think there are.”

“Are you sure?”

And Dean remembered how a dragon who said they were an angel had taken him back in time to see his mom when she was still just a kid like him and how it had all been just a dream. “Pretty sure.” Remembered the man that had been in the mirror but had just been some dude who was in the radio business. “Shut up and eat your breakfast.” Smiled gentle at Sam, to let him know he didn’t mean it like Dad, but even so later that night, Dean still heard Sam praying the lord his soul to keep, and so he just rolled over, plugged his ears up with his pillow and his fists.


End file.
